DEALER DOES NOT WANT A CAR SALES DISPLAY YARD

A Taupo, New Zealand, car dealer has taken to the Internet, big time. Ted Jones Motor Company Ltd, a conventional used car dealer since 1966, has now gone totally online. The business even has a website address as its official trading name.

5 March 2002:                FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact person         Ted Jones
Company Name        www.AutoSupply.co.nz
Telephone Number    07 378 7494
Fax number        07 378 7478
Email Address      ted@autosupply.co.nz
Website address   www.autosupply.co.nz

DEALER DOES NOT WANT A CAR YARD

A Taupo dealer has taken to the Internet, big time. Ted Jones Motor Company Ltd, a conventional New Zealand used car dealer since 1966, has now gone totally online. The business even has a website address as its dealer name. www.Autosupply.co.nz is the trading name of Ted Jones Motor Company Limited. The company, which stocks up to 400 imported used cars, has no conventional display space.

Bruce Jaine, Sales Manager, asked why would I want to maintain a conventional car yard when there is a world of computers out there upon which to display my vehicles". He said that the Internet had to be the most cost effective promotional tool ever invented.    

Whilst he stated that people buy cars from people, always have and always will" he added that in doing so those people are responding to what they feel they can trust. He said that he had found that the key to a successful online business was to provide dependable information and added that as the Internet offered the opportunity to put more information in front of more people than had ever been possible before it is the first place for me to be". He claimed however that the information should be as current and accurate as it is possible to make it. Bruce said that when that is obvious people react and make contact with him. He said that the Internet gives the shopper an opportunity to keep the salesman at arms length until he or she has enough good information and is thus ready to commit". Bruce thought that some dealers may see this as a negative element but with www.AutoSupply.co.nz Bruce claimed that the opposite has proven to be the case.

Bruce observed that there is a daily enlarging number of people surfing the net for car information and stated that he intends to put as many vehicles in front of them as possible. He claimed that the rules of car selling have not changed as, the bigger your stock the more you sell and that the more open you are, the more the prospect will trust you". Bruce said that he believed that on the Internet it is even more important, than with conventional car retailing, to keep the stock fresh and the prices current because the stock was so much more subject to public scrutiny. It seems perhaps that his many customers agree.

We wont be going back to bricks and mortar" said Bruce of www.AutoSupply.co.nz with a confident eye to the future but perhaps with over 7,000 visitors a month well be looking for some agents to help us".

Ted Jones     ted@autosupply.co.nz